


Yours

by Ryomou



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Bisexual Richie Tozier, M/M, Repressed Stan Uris, richie is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 02:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20866964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryomou/pseuds/Ryomou
Summary: “You think I don’t mean it?”“I know you don’t mean it. You always talk like this when you drink.”





	Yours

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write fluff and accidentally wrote angst. Whoops.

Bill had promised that holding one foot on the floor will keep him stable, but it doesn’t. The room still spins, making Stanley’s stomach churn, and he fights the urge to rock side to side in his tiny dormitory bed to keep pace with the movement.

Going to the party was a mistake.

Drinking was a mistake.

It doesn’t matter if it relaxed him at the time, letting him smile freely and lean into the touch of his friends without shame. Right now, he’s miserable; full of too much rum and too much vodka, and isn’t there a saying out there about never mixing dark and light liquor?

He can’t remember.

“Looks like our Staniel can’t hold his drink,” Richie laughs.

Stan gives him the middle finger.

Richie is far more drunk than he is, stumbling his footsteps, hip catching on the side of their shared dresser with a startled “Fuck!” before he collapses directly on top of Stan, pinning him to the mattress with his unsubstantial weight. He laughs again, far too loud and bright in the darkness of their shared room. He smells like cigarette smoke and spiced cologne, and despite his crushed lungs, Stan has the urge to breathe him in.

“G’off me,” he grunts instead.

“No can do, Stan my man,” Richie says, sinking into him even more. He tangles a hand in Stan’s curls as he sighs. “Too comfy.”

Richie’s always been affectionate after a few drinks, even with strangers. He’ll wrap people he barely knows up in giant hugs, ruffle their hair, plant kisses on foreheads and cheeks.

In his mind, Stan curses Bill for leaving the two of them alone. But Bill doesn’t know. He _can’t _know about the stupid crush Stanley’s been harboring since high school. Nobody can, because Stanley is A Good Jewish Boy—orthodox, straight A student, son of a Rabbi. He has expectations to follow, images to keep. Become an accountant, marry a Good Jewish Girl, like Patty from synagogue, move somewhere warm, start a family. It’s a plan that’s been in place since practically before he was born.

So, when Richie’s growth spurt hit during their junior year, and he sprouted up from 5’5 to a staggering 5’11, Stanley buried the butterflies that had exploded in his stomach. He hid his sweaty palms as Richie’s voice deepened, as his skin started collecting freckles and his hair grew out in unruly curls. He hid the hummingbird flutter of his heart as his closest friend’s face angled out into sharp cheekbones and a magnificent jawline.

Stanley buried everything, because he’s a Good Jewish Boy, no matter how much it hurts. 

Richie’s hand wanders down from Stan’s curls until it’s groping at his face and he snorts when his thumb nearly stabs him in the eye.

Stan makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a squawk. His limbs feel too heavy to push the taller boy off him. In fact, they feel too heavy to move at all.

“What are you _doing_?”

“Shhh,” Richie hushes, still violating his face. “I wanna feel your smile.”

“You want to _what_?”

“You smiled so much tonight, Stan. Staniel. Stanathan. I don’t think I’ve seen you smile so much in my life. You should drink more often.”

“Ugh, no. I’m never drinking again.”

Richie’s fingers find his lips and he wiggles gleefully. Stan’s not even smiling.

“Get your disgusting hand out of my mouth,” he deadpans.

“It’s not in your mouth, it’s _on _your mouth. But, I mean, I can put something in your mouth if that’s what you want.”

“Beep beep, Richie!”

Richie breaks out into a fit of laughter, rolling off his friend and onto his side.

“Hey,” he shakes Stan. “hey, look at me.”

“Can’t,” Stan says. “Too tired to look at your ugly face.”

Richie mock gasps.

“Staniel! I’m hurt.”

“Good.”

“For real though, look at me.”

Stan huffs a sigh and turns over, the world turning with him. It makes him feel sick, but suddenly Richie is there, taking up the entirety of his vision, illuminated by the single lamp in the corner of the room. He could count his endless freckles from here, spattered across his skin like a galaxy. His heart speeds up in his chest.

“Hi,” Richie whispers, and Stan thinks it’s the quietest he’s ever been.

There’s a grin spread across his lips, softer than his usual reckless one, and the same hand that was on his mouth a second ago finds its way to his cheek.

“You’re pretty.”

Stan’s heart skips a beat.

“You’re drunk,” he says.

“So? That doesn’t make you any less pretty. Prettiest little Jewish boy I’ve ever seen.”

“Seen a lot of Jewish boys, then?”

“Shut up, Stanley.”

Richie’s eyes are soft too—warm looking, like hot chocolate on a winter’s day. Just like he wishes Bill had never left them, he wishes that Richie wasn’t intoxicated right now. He can handle crass Richie, and gross Richie, and even sad Richie, but he can’t do affectionate Richie. He aches for it too much, wants so desperately for it to be real. But, Richie calls everybody pretty when he’s drunk. Eddie’s pretty and Bill’s pretty and Bev’s pretty, which, to be fair, they are, but…he wants Richie to mean it.

“I love seeing you happy, Stan. You had fun tonight. You were happy. Right?”

Stan nods.

“Good.”

A thumb caresses his bottom lip.

“…most beautiful smile…” Richie mutters.

Stan suddenly feels like he could cry.

“Stop, Rich.”

His friend’s brow furrows as Stan’s mouth turns down in a frown.

“You think I don’t mean it?”

“I _know _you don’t mean it. You always talk like this when you drink.”

“To you?”

“To everyone. The Losers. People from your classes. Strangers. Everyone.”

Richie leans closer, until their noses are almost brushing, until Stan can feel his breath, close enough for him to _actually _breathe him in.

“But I mean it with you.”

A single tear escapes, captured by Richie’s fingers. He looks awed.

It _hurts_.

“Please, stop.”

“Stanley…”

Stan lets out a gentle sob.

“Please,” he begs.

It hurts _so much_.

Richie kisses him, just a quick, fleeting thing.

“Shhh,” he soothes. “It’s okay.”

He kisses him again, and Stan can’t help but relish the feel of his chapped lips against his own. It’s everything he’s ever wanted—everything he’s dreamed of. Everything he can’t have.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Stan chants. “You don’t understand, Richie, I can’t. _I can’t_.”

“Can’t what, Stan?”

“I can’t…want you.”

Richie stares at him with deep understanding.

“I know.”

He knows.

Stan thinks back to when they were twelve, when Richie came out to him as bisexual, because they were—are—best friends, and that’s what best friends do. He remembers when Richie, at fourteen, told him about his crush on Eddie, how he’d carved their initials into the Kissing Bridge. He thinks about how Richie told him, late at night after sneaking in through Stan’s window, about how he lost his virginity at sixteen at a party. Stan had thought his heart had broken then, but little did he know it would break hundreds if not thousands of more times after that. Every time Richie kisses someone, his heart breaks. Every time he hugs someone, his heart breaks. Every time he can’t be with him, his heart breaks. And they’re best friends, and he knows. Because for as many secrets Richie has shared with him, Stan has shared just as many of his own. His resentment for his parents, his fear of God, his lack of feelings for the girl his family is so adamant he ask on a date.

Of course, Richie knows. How could he not?

Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the five years of pent-up feelings, but Stan surges forward to capture Richie in a kiss of his own.

The taller boy sighs into his mouth, a sweet, content sound, and Stan melts. It’s not a messy kiss, or a heated one, but it’s full of so much adoration and silent promises that for a moment Stan can pretend that this is the way things are meant to be. Stan and Richie. Richie and Stan.

“Wanted you for so long,” Richie breathes.

He raises his other hand so that he’s cupping Stan’s face and Stan can’t help but smile.

“Please let me keep you.”

“I’m already yours.”


End file.
